NPR Music

Virtuoso players in Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany are raising the bar for roots-inspired acoustic guitar music.

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In their native Australia, Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson are chart-topping country stars. Young, beautiful, talented and married, they seem to live a charmed life. They travel with their baby daughter, Poet, and perform all over the world together. But their new album, Wreck & Ruin, gives fans a peek into some of their darker material.

It's been fascinating to watch the creative development of Laura Gibson, the singer-songwriter who, among other things, inspired NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concerts series.

Soul legend Bobby Womack was considered a survivor before he'd started work on his long-awaited comeback album The Bravest Man in the Universe. After overcoming hospitalization with pneumonia and successful treatment of colon cancer while in the midst of recording the album, Womack released his finest work in ages over the summer.